TYME BANK ARE ********

Wanted to give 0 stars.

I was at the Pick n pay in Wonderboom, Pretoria. I was ****med into opening a tyme bank debit account. I was told I was signing up for a smart shopper card. In the end the guy handed me a debit card, and I immediatley said I don't want this, I wanted a smart shopper card and this is a bank account. He then told that it's too late and he can't do anything about it. He told me that I must contact tyme bank to close the account. (March 2021)

I contacted Tyme bank and requested to close the account, I followed the entire email process and assumed the account was closed. (CL3259)

I later started receiving sms' from tyme bank about a hollard insurance policy debit order being declined. I immediatley emailed Tyme bank (31 July 2021)and told them that, firstly the account should be closed and secondly I have never signed up for any hollard policy and that this debit order is not mine. I stopped receiving the sms' so I assumed the account had now been closed and the situation was rectified.

Later this year I received sms' from Tyme bank again. So I contacted them to ensure that the bank account is closed. To my dismay the account was still not closed and had been active this entire year.

In the past 2 days I have spoken with 3 people from Tyme bank's customer care (Thebo, Phumudzo, Katlego). I was told the account cannot be closed because it has a negative balance. The negative balance was due to bank charges/declined hollard debit orders. I was told if I want to close the account I have to deposit money into the account to settle the balance. I deposited the amount that I was told to deposit and called back, I was then told that I am 30 cents short because 30 cents is deducted for the sms.

I was unable to close this account because of 30 cents. I have never used this account and was under the impression it had been closed at the begining of this year.

I was told to deposit 60 cents into the account to settle the 30 cents outstanding and for the 30 cents that gets deducted for the sms. I did this.

I called the customer care today to check that the balance was sorted out and the account was being closed. I was then told that R3 is still outstanding because of a declined hollard policy that went through. I now had to deposit a further R3 into the account to settle this new outstanding balance. I remained on the call while I made the transfer, the account balance was settled and a request was made to close the account. (CL 4842)

After all of this the account is still not closed. I was told that I need to now follow the same email process which I followed at begining of this year which didnt even result in the account closing then.

It should not be this hard to close a bank account. I had to pay to close an account that I was ****med into opening, as well as the amount of airtime I had to use for the long amounts of time I spent calling customer care.

This is absolutely pathetic service.